


Say Something

by sixthstreetniam



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Caitlin and Tommo are best friends, Death, F/M, Liam as a ghost, Niall has brunette hair, Niall is 34, Niam Bromance, Originally Posted on Wattpad, Pregnancy, Secrets, Serial Killer, Survivors, Theo is 14, Twins, missing key, no smut sorry, set in 2028, subtle Larry romance, the Deakin twins are only there for a little bit, this is my first published fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-11 21:00:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 38
Words: 21,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3332699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixthstreetniam/pseuds/sixthstreetniam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theo senses that something strange is going on in the house that he lives in with his uncle Niall one night, and the next morning Niall goes to investigate to find a girl in the room with the missing key, beaten and bruised. The next day her best friend is found in the same place, but she has been stabbed and is only just able to be saved.</p><p>or, the one where Niall, Theo, and Niall's policeman friend Elliott, work together to protect two girls from a serial killer who is out to kill them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

It was a stormy night in 2028 when Caitlin and her best friend, Tommo, found themselves abducted by the man who Tommo had fallen in love with. They were thrown into a van and taken to a place neither of them had been to before: the abandoned office block that lay right at the very edge of the Irish city of Dublin. Separated from her best friend, Caitlin found herself tied to a chair where she was beaten with fists, feet, a wooden spoon, a riding crop, and various other things that caused her considerable pain, until she finally found herself unconscious.

When she woke, dazed and confused, she was no longer tied to that chair in that room in that place. She no longer had a man standing over her, beating her. She was lying alone on a mattress in a completely empty room, and the only thing she could remember about the night before was her name. She glanced at her arms and legs, and saw that they were covered in bruises that were growing more and more purple, and cuts so deep that it was a wonder she hadn't bled out and died.

The room had a door with two windows in it, and through those windows she could see a man who she thought she recognised. He had soft-looking brown hair and the bluest eyes she'd ever seen in her life. It took her a minute to remember his name before she found her voice and said it.

"Niall James Horan."

He was her idol from her teenage years, and he was right there on the other side of that door, older yet even more beautiful than he had been the last time she had seen his face, thirteen years before.


	2. The bedroom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is basically just an introduction to the main setting of the story: the house where Niall and Theo live.

Niall's POV

Once upon a time, I used to share my house with my nephew Theo. His bedroom was quite big and full of everything a little boy could ever want: toy cars, football posters, and stuffed monkey toys for he was obsessed with monkeys. His bed was built to look like a treehouse, and it had been built by myself and my brother Greg, his father, when Theo was very young. It was high up with a rope ladder leading to it. His bedroom walls were covered in pictures of monkeys and other jungle animals, and Greg and I had decorated that room for when Theo was to come and stay with me.

When Theo was three years old, Greg and his wife Denise were killed in a brutal shooting that occured when Theo just so happened to be staying with me. As a three year old boy completely oblivious to what had happened to his parents, a rather happy Theo moved in with me permanently. He would spend all day in that room, playing with his monkeys, his toy cars and his treehouse. Occasionally, he would stop and admire the Derby football club posters that adorned small sections of his bedroom wall. He would sometimes ask me who those men were and why they were on the wall with all the monkeys.

Theo was 14 years old when he decided that he was getting a bit old for his monkey-filled room, so together we renovated another room in the house to become his new bedroom. We spent the summer holidays doing up his new bedroom. We painted it black and blue and green and orange, just like he wanted it, and he asked to keep the treehouse bed but store all the monkeys in the attic. He had also become more interested in Derby, so on one wall we placed a large poster of the team.

After we had created a new room for Theo, we set to work turning his old room into a spare bedroom. We stripped all the monkey wallpaper from the walls, threw away the monkey curtains in the windows, and then we bought a mattress to be placed in a new bed. We locked the room one night, and the next morning Theo told me that the key had disappeared from its hook in the kitchen with the other keys, and we thought nothing of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was actually titled "chapter one: the bedroom" when I posted it on wattpad but ao3 insisted that I call the prologue "chapter 1" which is really annoying because it comes before chapter one but oh well


	3. The mystery girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theo thinks something strange is going on at night and the next morning Niall goes to investigate.

It was about a month after the key went missing that Theo was walking past his old room late at  night and sensed something a bit strange in the air. Like some kind of aura that told him something was up. He burst into my room and said:

"Uncle Niall, I think something weird is happening in my old room. Maybe you should investigate in the morning."

I mumbled "Okay, Theo", feeling very sleepy and not wanting to get up. It was 2am at the time.

I woke up the next morning and immediately went to go see what was going on in that room. I looked through the window and saw what looked like a girl lying on the mattress, curled up into a ball. I looked closer and saw that she looked as if she had been beaten, her clothes ripped and bruises noticable. I didn't know how she got there, but I wanted to help her. I didn't even know if she was alive or dead.

After I had dropped my nephew off at school, I pulled up a chair in front of the door and waited for her to wake up, to see if she would ever wake up in fact. I didn't want to call the police until I knew if she was alright. After five minutes, I went and got two notebooks and pens so that we could communicate by writing stuff down.

I sat and watched her, watched and watched, on and on, until I noticed her beginning to wake up. Good, she's alive, I thought. She sat up slowly and stretched, flinching as she was obviously in pain. When she opened her eyes and saw me, she smiled. She clearly knew exactly who I was.

We stared at each other for a few minutes before I got up from my chair and pushed one of the notebooks and pens through the open window. I sat back down and scribbled onto mine: "Who are you and how did you get in there?"

I looked up to see her stumbling towards where the notebook had landed, and then she fell. I saw her wince with pain before she crawled the rest of the way. When she reached the notebook, she slowly wrote her reply:

"My name is Caitlin and the answer to your question is I have no idea"

Caitlin. That's a nice name. I thought to myself before I scribbled that I would get her some food and went to the kitchen.

I returned a short while later with not only a plate of food but a stool that I could push through the window easily so that Caitlin could stand on it to reach the plate. I wrote on the notepad for her to stand back, and she did as she was told. I then pushed the stool through the window and heard it hit the ground on the other side.

Caitlin cautiously moved forward and positioned the stool in such a way that she could reach the window by standing on it. She stood on it and I gently passed the plate of food through the window into her hands. She mouthed "thank you, Niall" (it seemed that she had lost her voice), and she took the food from my hands and stepped down.

She placed the plate on the floor for a bit while she moved the stool so that she could sit on it to eat and I could still see her. I sat down on the chair in the hallway facing towards the door and watched her eat. She smiled slightly as she ate, taking reasonable yet ravenous bites which made it seem like she hadn't eaten in days.

She finished her food then picked up the notepad I had pushed through the window earlier and scribbled onto it:

"Niall, how am I going to get out of here?"

I wrote back: "The key disappeared a few months ago. I can call the police to break into the room and get you out, and then you can stay in our other spare room."

She smiled a bit bigger than before as she read the message I had written, glad that she would be freed from her prison of sorts and in a safe place. She wrote her reply:

"Thank you, Niall. And not just for this, but for everything you've done for me without knowing."

I sat there smiling to myself, feeling very happy that I had made a difference in somebody's life. I then took my IPhone out of my pocket and dialled 999, the number for the emergency services, and asked the police to come and break into the room where Caitlin was.


	4. the escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin is freed from the room with the missing key.

The police arrived about 20 minutes later, for the nearest police station was in the next town, and I asked them to try not to wreck the door.

"But Niall, it's a bit hard to get this mysterious girl out without wrecking the door," said a cheery policewoman. "You could always get a new door."

"Okay, okay. Just wait a second before you bust it." I said.

I picked up my notepad and wrote on it: "You will need to stand well back, love."

I saw Caitlin blush slightly as she read the word love before moving back to stand beside the mattress. A policeman crashed something heavy against the door and it flew open. Caitlin seemed to gasp a little as she watched on. The policeman said "she's all yours now," and began to walk away.

"Wait," I said. "Aren't you going to try to find something out about this woman and how she got here?"

"That's for the CSIs to find out," said the cheeey policewoman. "Get her showered, get her cleaned up and into some neater clothes. They'll be here in an hour. Get to know the girl."

"Okay," I said, and they walked away. I stepped into the room to find a shaken up Caitlin standing there. I walked up to her and wrapped my arms around her in a big hug, because she really needed one. She wrapped her own arms gently around my back, whimpering slightly at the pain it caused her by touching her arms to my shirt. We stood there for quite a while, never letting go, and after five minutes she had begun to cry into my shoulder.

I held her gently, letting the tears fall silently as she realised that she was finally free and in my arms. And that's the greatest feeling I've ever felt. To save a life and know how much it had meant to them. We eventually, after about twenty minutes of hugging, let go of each other. I then took her hand gently in my own and led her to the bedroom where the clothes of my former girlfriend who had left me still remained in the wardrobe. They would just about fit her, I thought.


	5. the injuries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin gets cleaned up and Niall finally gets to see the extent of her injuries... and he is shocked.

I opened the door of the wardrobe and Caitlin let out a small "wow" as she took in the amount of clothes she could wear.

"Choose something," I said. "And then I'll show you to the shower."

I sat down on the bed that I had once slept in but no longer did because this room was a woman's room. Purple and pink covers and pillows and cushions in the bed, pale purple and yellow curtains in the big bay window, a soft white carpet beneath my feet. I had been meaning to paint the walls a different colour to the white with a slightly purple tinge to it, but Theo and I had never gotten around to it.

I looked up to see that Caitlin had chosen a red dress that came to just above her knees, and she showed it to me.

"Perfect, " I said, and I showed her the drawers that contained women's underwear. She took from them what she needed and I said "Good to go?"

Caitlin nodded slowly and I then took her hand once again and showed her to the bathroom.

.........................................................................................

It was only after Caitlin had stepped out of the shower and gotten dressed that I discovered the full extent of the injuries that she had sustained in whatever it was she did prior to ending up here. All over her body were many dark purple bruises and cuts that showed she had been beaten before she was found in Theo's old bedroom with the missing key.

She saw me staring, counting her injuries, and she became a bit self-concious, covering a few on her arms.

"No, it's okay. I just think it's crazy that this has all been done to you." I said to her. "I don't know how anyone could do this to such a beautiful person as yourself, Caitlin."

She looked me in my eyes and didn't say a word. Just looked at me, smiling a little.

"Can you talk to me?" I asked her, and she shook her head.

"But you can talk, right?" to this, she simply nodded. She was obviously a bit lost for words and couldn't make her voice speak.

I whispered quietly "That's okay, sweetheart." before again throwing my arms around her in a big hug and allowing her to bury her face into my shoulder.


	6. the CSIs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the CSIs come to ask Caitlin some questions about her ordeal.

I held onto Caitlin for a long time, for what seemed like forever, not wanting to ever let go. I only released my grasp when somebody tapped me on the shoulder. The CSIs had arrived.

When I released my arms from around Caitlin, she saw the CSIs and shuddered, obviously a bit scared about what they were going to do to her.

"It's okay love, we just need to talk to you about how exactly you ended up in a room to which Niall and Theo Horan had lost the key." said a very nice female CSI.

Caitlin opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out. I took her hand in mine gently and told them that she had been communicating with me by writing on a notepad that I had pushed through the window along with a pen.

"Could you perhaps write down what you remember, sweetheart?" said the woman CSI.

Caitlin nodded and the CSI handed her a small notepad and a pen, on which Caitlin wrote:

"I don't remember anything. I woke up and I was here."

"Okay, I'll return in a few days to see if you remember anything." she said, before closing the notepad and turning to leave.

"Is that all you're going to do?" I protested.

"Well, if Caitlin can't remember right now, she will eventually. We just have to wait until she can tell us." she said, and she left.

........................................................................

After the kind woman CSI had left, Caitlin turned to me and whispered, for it didn't seem that she could talk any louder than a whisper, :

"What was that all about?"

"They need to know what happened to you," I replied.

"I honestly don't remember a thing."

"You will, give it a bit of time. I need to pick Theo up from school soon and you can come with me if you want."

"I've been wanting to meet Theo since he was born," she replied. "I'd love to come."

"We'll be leaving in ten minutes, then. Let's watch some Derby."

Caitlin giggled. "You still love that team?"


	7. Theo's reaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin and Niall watch a Derby County match, which results in Niall forgetting to pick Theo up from school. Then, Theo meets Caitlin.

I led Caitlin to my living room and we sat down on the couch to watch a Derby match. She laughed every time I cheered for them and watched my reactions. She obviously knew that I had been a fan of the team for a long time.

I completely forgot about the time until Theo texted me.

"Uncle Niiiiiiiiialllll, where are you?"

I replied with "We'll be there soon." to which he responded: "WE?!"

I turned to Caitlin and said: "We need to go now. I forgot to pick up Theo!" to which she simply nodded and grabbed my hand.

I led her back to the bedroom with the clothes and she picked a jacket to keep her arms warm before we left the house.

It was a chilly winter afternoon and I had left my beloved nephew waiting for me in the snow while I watched Derby. Pretty typical of me, you must be thinking.

I opened the door for Caitlin to get into the car, and she did so before I locked up my house and we began to drive towards Theo's school.

.........................................................................................

When Theo saw Caitlin, he seemed unsurprised. "Who's this pretty lady?" he asked.

"Theo, this is Caitlin. Caitlin, meet Theo."

"Nice to meet you." said Theo, putting out his hand to shake hers.

"I found Caitlin locked up in your old room after I dropped you off to school this morning." I told him.

"How on earth did she get in there? The key's been missing for months!" he protested.

"I seriously cannot remember, Theo. I woke up and wondered exactly that." Caitlin said.

"That's a bit weird, isn't it?" said Theo. "Can we go home now? I've been waiting here for aaaaages!"

"Come on, then." I said, taking Caitlin's hand in my own once again and leading them both to the car.


	8. Caitlin remembers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They go to bed, and Caitlin suddenly remembers how she got there (in the middle of the night).

It was around 9pm that Caitlin decided to go to sleep. We had been to the pub with Theo and eaten a really good dinner of roast beef and potatoes. Then we had sat in front of the tv for a few hours, watching recordings of my beloved Derby football team's past few matches.

She had asked me to sleep in her room that night to protect her, because she was scared that whatever had beaten her and locked her in Theo's old room would come back to finish her off. I was laying a sleeping bag down on the floor for myself to sleep in when she said:

"No, it's a double bed, Niall. Surely you can sleep up here with me."

I reluctantly agreed and we climbed into bed together. Her body was warm and she was shaking, as if she were scared. Which of course she was. I attempted to comfort her by saying "it's okay, I'll protect you" and she wrapped her arms around me in a big cuddle and said thank you.

I found it incredibly strange to be sleeping in a bed that was not my own with a woman who I barely knew, but I knew I couldn't leave her alone after whatever it was that had happened to her. I could not sleep so I just lay there, watching her. it was about half an hour before I knew that she was in deep sleep. She looked so beautiful sleeping there beside me.

It had been about a year since I had last shared my bed with a woman, the very same woman who all the clothes in the room had belonged to. Her name was Isabel and I had been planning to marry her. She was to be the recipient of the beautiful engagement ring that had been sitting in my drawer for many years. I had bought it right at the start of my career, eighteen years ago, for my princess who was to come. Unfortunately, Isabel had died in a car crash before I could propose. I wondered if the ring could one day be Caitlin's.

After I few hours, I realised that Caitlin was beginning to stir. I could feel her tensing up beside me, as if something in her dreams was making her panic. She woke up with a jolt and began to shake me violently.

"Niall! Niall, I remember! They've got Tommo, Niall! They've got Tommo!" she yelled.

"Calm down Caitlin, calm down! I'm sure this Tommo of yours will be fine!" I said in an attempt to calm her down.

"No she won't, Niall! They told me they were going to kill-"

It was then that I heard the scream coming from Theo's old room and knew that Caitlin's worst fear had come true.


	9. Tommo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall meets Tommo.

Caitlin and I both got out of bed as fast as possible and sprinted towards Theo's old room. Whatever it was that caused that scream to come from the one Caitlin called Tommo needed to be caught, and fast. I grabbed my dressing gown off my bedroom door handle as I passed it and pulled it on quickly. I then reached for Caitlin's hand and gripped it tightly. She was shaking like a leaf.

Before we could reach the room, I could hear footsteps, running, running, away from us and out my back door. I had no idea how we could catch them now. We finally reached the room and I turned on the light. What we saw was a sight to behold.

There, lying bleeding on the mattress, was a girl. She was a little bit older than Caitlin, a little bit taller, her bright blue eyes matching the colour of my own, her brown hair messy around her face. She was bleeding from where a knife had been stabbed into her chest.

"Tommo! TOMMO, NO!" Caitlin exclaimed when she saw her friend there, bleeding fast.

"Caitlin.... help me...." said Tommo between breaths, struggling to hold on to her life through the pain.

"Niall! Niall, can you call 999 PLEASE?!" sobbed Caitlin as she rushed over to her friend.

I stood there in shock, not quite knowing what to do. I quickly pulled out my phone and called 999.

"Hello? Please, I need an ambulance and police! There is a girl in my house and she has been stabbed!" I yelled down the phone line.

The operator already knew me by my voice, and he told me that the ambulance would be here as soon as possible.

"Please hurry! She's bleeding so very fast!" I said, and they hung up.

'Don't touch the knife, Caitlin!" I said when I looked up to see her hand on it. "If you pull the knife out, she'll only bleed faster! The ambulance is coming, promise."

"Okay, Niall." she said, sobbing through her words as she watched her friend go through so much pain and suffering.

I called my friend Elliott (a police officer) and asked him to look after Theo, and he agreed. My nephew had slept through it all.

"Niall...." I heard Tommo's voice say. "Niall... thank you so much."

She was weak, and she was so close to dying. I couldn't help but be a bit scared.


	10. please be okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommo fights for her life.

It was only a few minutes later that the ambulance arrived. Caitlin was still clinging to her friend, covered in blood, and sobbing. I watched in horror, honestly not knowing what to do. I was glad that the scream had not woken Theo up because he would've been scared out of his mind.

This girl was dying, I could see it in her eyes as they turned from the bright blue that resembled mine to a deep, dark greyish green colour. She was scared, we all were, and when Caitlin stepped back to allow the ambulance crew to help Tommo, she grabbed her arm and said:

"Caitlin... you have to stay strong... do it for me... and for Niall... please."

Caitlin stopped and gave her friend a very gentle hug as such to not cause any more pain, and allowed the ambulance crew to help her. They carefully removed the knife from Tommo's chest and began to press hard on the wound in order for the bleeding to stop,  and once they were sure that it had, they wrapped her chest tightly in bandages. They then carefully lifted her onto a stretcher and we followed them to the ambulance, shaking from worry.

Police rushed into the room as we left the house and began to process the crime scene. I didn't quite know what to do,  so I took Caitlin's hand in my own and held onto it reassuringly. I didn't know who Tommo was, or where she had come from, but I knew that she meant everything to Caitlin.

We climbed into the back of the ambulance and Caitlin grabbed on to Tommo's hand with her free one, forming a chain out of the three of us. The paramedic hooked up all sorts of monitors to Tommo's body, and we could see from the heart rate monitor that hers was very, very weak. I didn't know whether it was possible for her to survive.

When we arrived at the hospital five minutes later, we were asked to say goodbye. Caitlin looked into Tommo's eyes and said "promise me you'll be okay." Tommo nodded, but I had this feeling deep down in my stomach that she wasn't going to survive. Caitlin let go of her hand, and she was whisked away to the nearest operating room.

I threw my arms around Caitlin immediately, and we stood there outside the emergency entrance in the cold, holding each other tightly as she sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. We didn't let go of each other until we heard the long beep from the heart monitor that announced to the world that Tommo, whoever she was, was gone.

Caitlin tore herself away from me and ran, as fast as I'd ever seen anyone run, to where her friend was being operated on. I followed her, and we looked through the window cut into the door to see doctors and nurses all shaking their heads.

"No! No, Tommo can't be dead! She can't be!" Caitlin choked out between sobs. I knew that nothing would ever be okay again.

At least, that was what I thought until I heart the soft beeping that told the world that Tommo was alive.

"Caitlin! Caitlin, do you hear that?!" I said.

"Niall, now is not the time!" she replied.

"No, Caitlin. It is the time! Tommo is alive!"

"........ Tommo the tease strikes again. " she said, looking up to see the doctors and nurses frantically working to repair the gaping hole in Tommo's chest, the soft, gentle beeping of the heart monitor slowly calming her down.

"She's okay,  Niall! Tommo is okay!" she said, and she threw her arms around me in a big hug. I ducked down a little bit, as she was a tiny bit shorter than myself, and gently pressed my lips to hers. Everything was going to be alright.

We stood, holding each other tight, enjoying the passionate and beautiful kisses we exchanged with each other. It was only then that I realised just how deeply I had fallen in love with the beaten and broken girl that I had just met, only then did I know that the ring would be hers.

..............................................................................

It was late the next day that Tommo finally woke up. She was lying in her hospital bed, all hooked up to oxygen, blood transfusions, liquids and monitors, when she slowly opened her eyes and saw us standing there. Me, Caitlin, and Theo. She smiled when she saw us, a beautiful smile that made her whole face light up.

"TOMMO!!!! I seriously thought you were dead!" said Caitlin, seeing that the girl who I now knew was her best friend was awake and smiling.

"I was dead, Caitlin. One minute I was in so, so much pain, and the next I was floating up, up, up, above my own dead body. I saw you standing there, sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, the love of your life right by your side, and I knew I could never leave you. But there was one tiny thing that I wanted to do first. I finally got to see Harry, Caitlin. I finally got to see my son." said Tommo, quiet tears streaming down her face.

"I'm so glad you're okay, Tommo. I don't know what I'd do without you here. Even with Niall by my side. And I bet Harry was beautiful. "

"He was, Caitlin.  So very beautiful. My little prince." Tommo smiked slightly before whimpering in pain. "Please, Niall, can you get a nurse or someone to give me some damn strong painkillers? My chest is killing me!"

I chuckled softly to myself before grabbing Theo's arm and leading him out of the room in our search for a nurse.


	11. Tommo and Caitlin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall learns Caitlin and Tommo's story.

Tommo's road to recovery was long and painful, and every day Caitlin and I, and sometimes Theo, would come to visit her. They told me all about their many years of friendship, and everything that came with it. They had met for the first time in 2014, when Tommo was 16 and Caitlin was 13, at twitter meetup in Auckland, New Zealand, where they were both originally from before they both moved to Ireland after they had finished their university degrees.

They had moved into a tiny flat in Dublin together, as flatmates and best friends. When they had first met, they discovered their love for the band that I was a part of, and they both loved me the best, they told me. They had kept in touch with each other through twitter, meeting up again many times. Tommo had been planning a trip around the world and had made sure that Caitlin was one of the people that came with her, along with Tommo's high school best friend Jordan and her niece Kloe, who was English.

They had started off their trip by simply crossing the Tasman sea, which separates New Zealand from Australia, and visiting not only the Gold coast but Jordan's home town of Koorda. They had then travelled to Canada to meet up with one of their long term internet friends who lived there, Hafsa, before heading to England where they stayed with Kloe for about a month before taking her with them to their next destination which was Japan.

Tommo had been to Japan once before, and she took the three of them on a tour of the country, and they saw more of Japan than the boys and I had ever seen before. They then left Japan and came to Ireland, spending three weeks going around the country before Tommo and Caitlin had decided to stay, Kloe had returned to her home in England, and Jordan had returned to New Zealand.

It wasn't until Tommo's third day in hospital that the CSIs finally showed up to question the two of them about what happened. That's the Irish for you, always a bit lazy and always up for a drink. They told me to leave the room and sit outside while they pulled up a chair in front of Caitlin, who was sitting at Tommo's bedside, keeping a close eye on her fragile best friend, and began to ask them questions.

I watched from my chair just outside in the hallway as Caitlin began to tell them everything she had remembered.


	12. the story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall learns more of the story.

For weeks and weeks Caitlin and Tommo had people surrounding them, doctors, nurses, CSIs, police. A psychologist named Lance Sweets, who came from the FBI in America, was a frequent visitor. He worked closely with a group of forensic anthropologists, who had found a body that could possibly be linked to the case of the two girls who showed up, one beaten, one stabbed, in a locked room in the house of an Irishman and his nephew.

Caitlin was very reluctant to tell me what had happened to her and what she was so scared of, but Sweets convinced her and Tommo to tell me. The two girls had been kidnapped by a man who Caitlin described as tall and strong, with a head of pale brown hair and bright blue eyes. He was a handsome lad, and he had become friends with Tommo over the year before. Caitlin had always warned her to be careful, that he would be trouble, that something wasn't quite right with him. One day, he had showed up to their flat with two big burly Irish men and they had broken down the door and grabbed them. They tried to fight back but even between the two of them the strength of the men overpowered them and they were dragged downstairs and thrown into the back of a van.

They had held each other close in the van, scared and not really knowing what to do. Once they had reached their destination, they were dragged out and separated, and then tied up and taken to different rooms from each other. Neither of them knew what was about to happen to them, and both were scared for each other. Caitlin was silent the whole time, too scared to say a word, but Tommo was a different story. She had fought back, struggling to break herself free from the rope that held her tight, screaming "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM US?!" and fighting hard to free herself. Caitlin had listened, listened quietly, as one of the big burly men watched her, she was tied tightly to a chair, as she feared for her life.

Eventually they locked all the doors to the room where Caitlin was tied up and untied her ropes, allowing her to freely move around. "She's ready" the big man had whispered creepily to the man with the pale brown hair. Ready for what? she had thought what are they going to do to me? 

The next thing Caitlin knew, she was knocked unconcious. She doesn't know what happened during that time, but Tommo continued to fight hard to beat the horrible men. She told me that the brown haired man was called James, and that before that day she had thought him to be a completely normal nice guy.

James had vanished for about a day and a half, and Tommo had no idea where he had gone or what he had done or was about to do to her best friend. It wasn't until midnight the day after they had been kidnapped that he reappeared and tried to knock Tommo unconcious in the same way as he had Caitlin. But Tommo fought back, kicked him on the shin hard so that he stopped and grabbed his leg in pain, and she had taken this opportunity to slip out of the ropes binding her to the chair, which she had been slowly loosening since she had been tied up. She got free and began to try to escape from the room.

"Grab her!" James had yelled to the two big strong men, and they did as they were told. "Throw her back into the van and I'll be there in five minutes"

Tommo struggled hard to escape from the grasp of the men, but they would not let her get away and she was thrown into the back of the van. She had sat there, planning her next move, until the van began to move. As soon as I get out of here, I'm kicking James in the balls she had thought to herself.

As soon as the van had dome to a stop, Tommo stood up and braced herself for attack. By the time the door was opened, she was poised and ready to kick James in the balls. But it wasn't James who she saw when the door was opened, it was the two men, and they grabbed her forcefully and placed duct tape over her mouth and dragging her towards the house, my house. Tommo had recognised it as the house where I lived with Theo, and she knew exactly what the room she was to be taken to used to be.

She was led into the very same room where I had found Caitlin that morning the day before, and here she was beaten up, just like Caitlin had obviously been while unconcious. During this time, she had ripped the duct tape off of her mouth and begun to fight back. But as soon as she had lifted her wrist, James had pulled a knife from his pocket and stabbed her right in the chest and she had screamed, and he ran off.

But that's not quite the end of the story of Caitlin and Tommo. Why? Because another girl's body had been found, beaten and stabbed and very much dead, in a swimming pool in LA. A swimming pool that just so happened to be in the backyard of the house of one of my best friends, Harry. And that body was believed to be linked to the case of the two girls, both beaten, one stabbed and back from the dead, in the room with the missing key in my house in Ireland.


	13. the dead girl's connection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry finds a dead girl in his swimming pool.

Harry had discovered the body of a woman with dark brown hair and blue eyes, floating in his pool when he decided to go for a swim one morning, and of course he had panicked and screamed. He saw her before he could jump into the pool, and he found himself vomiting onto the pavement around pool immediately.

The woman had been identified as Hermione Louise Williams and her cause of death was stab wound to the chest, just as Tommo had nearly died from. She was also covered in bruises like the ones that had been found on Caitlin. The only connections that she seemed to have with Caitlin and Tommo were the fact that she had suffered the same treatment as both of them combined and that she had been found in the swimming pool of a house belonging to a member of the same band as myself.

This case had been assigned to a team of CSIs and FBI agents of which Lance Sweets, the psychologist, was one of them. He had heard about the case of these two girls in Ireland and had quickly established a connection that linked Hermione with Caitlin and Tommo, for their injuries were the same. He had flown all the way over from America just so that he could talk to them and hear all about their story.

As soon as he heard the name James Riley escape from Tommo's lips, I had seen Sweets' face go white as a sheet. Caitlin had noticed and asked him why that name had caused him to react like that, and he told them that James Riley is a serial killer, and that for about a year he had been going around the world killing people and that they were struggling to catch him. He said that these two girls were the only case of his victims surviving what they had been through.

Sweets knew James well, he had been trying to help catch him for years, but mostly his job had consisted of talking to grieving families and murder cases that had not been solved, until now. He suspected that Hermione was a victim of James, for he knew that his signature was to beat up a girl and then stab her in the chest. From Tommo and Caitlin he had gathered more evidence that could help him and his team in solving all these cold cases.

Hermione had been found a week after Caitlin and I had found Tommo stabbed and bleeding out fast in my house, which was just long enough for James to have left the country and travelled to America to murder her. Sweets believed that he had hurt Tommo and Caitlin to send a message to the people who were hunting for him, but he didn't know what that message could be. Caitlin had been beaten, but not stabbed, and Tommo had been stabbed but not with such precision as to kill her.

To be honest, these cases that Sweets was working on fascinated me, I had always wondered what it would be like to deal with dead people all the time. He told me that the dead people part of his job freaked him out a little bit but he enjoyed using his psychology skills to help people. I could never do that, I thought, I'll stick to being a singer, much more fun.


	14. his memory will live on forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommo is released from hospital, and Niall remembers how his best mate, Liam, died.

It was about a month after Tommo had been stabbed that she was finally allowed out of hospital, and I was told to let them both stay in my house until this awful James guy had been caught. Caitlin had already made herself very much at home in my house and I had taken upon the responsibility to protect her whatever the cost, and I intended to do the same with her best friend.

I will never forget the look on Tommo's face when she stepped into my house for the first time, an oxygen machine still hooked up to her for she could not breathe on her own due to the damage done to her lungs by the knife. I had watched her painful recovery day in and day out for the past month, and the relief in her eyes when she realised that she would finally be safe was absolutely priceless.

I remember Caitlin and I showing Tommo every single room in the house, from the four bedrooms upstairs to the kitchen, living room and massive pantry below. There were only two rooms in the house that I did not show them, two rooms that I hadn't been in for a few years - my recording studio and the room where I kept everything to do with my career. I had built the recording studio with my four best friends and bandmates Liam, Harry, Louis and Zayn, along with our long-term drummer Josh, and the room where I kept everything to do with my career had become a shrine of sorts since the death of my best friend of all best friends: Liam James Payne.

Nobody had ever expected Liam to die so soon. We were 25, me and him, when he had collapsed while performing on stage with all of us in London. Everyone in the stadium had fallen silent immediately, scared for what was to happen next and panicking about what was wrong with Liam. Josh had thrown his sticks down and called an ambulance as quickly as he possibly could, and the five of us had rushed over to try to help him, our two guitarists, our support act, and all the fans, watching on in absolute silence.

Liam had not died straight away, he was a fighter, he wasn't going to let whatever it was kill him. He fought on in hospital for months and months, struggling to hold onto whatever life was left in him while the doctors around him struggled to find out what the hell was wrong with him. All five of us sat by his bedside two by two, on alternative days, watching and waiting for a miracle to come around, praying to god that something would happen to make everything right once again, to fix Liam. I was the one who literally never left his side. I had promised him when we first got put together as a group that I never would.

After eight months, whatever it was that was wrong with Liam had taken over him completely, and he whispered to me his very last words:

"Niall, don't you EVER forget me or who we were."


	15. a weird night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin has a weird night.

I remember the night that everything began to change, the night when we found out more about just what happened to Caitlin from the time between being knocked unconcious until the time she woke up to find herself all beaten up in Theo's old room. Like most nights, she had asked me to sleep in the big double bed in her room by her side, to protect her, while Tommo slept down the hall in a single bed that we had placed Theo's room. I remember that she was holding me close to her, cuddling me, holding me tight as she slept. I, however, was wide awake, unable to sleep for the fear of dreaming about what had happened to her.

It was about 1am when I had felt Caitlin beginning to wake up beside me. I heard her whisper to me "Niall, I don't feel too good, I'm going to get a drink of water okay?" I softly mumbled "Okay" and she pulled back the covers and climbed out of bed, before walking towards the kitchen. A few minutes later, I heard the sound of somebody vomiting, retching, in the bathroom just across the hall. Caitlin! I thought, and quickly rushed to her side.

I knew that something was wrong, something was really wrong. Caitlin had been perfectly fine when she had fallen asleep, but now here she was very very sick and vomiting uncontrollably. I didn't know quite what was going on, so I wrapped my arm gently around her back to comfort her, whispering in her ear that it's going to be alright, she'll be okay soon.

After she had finally stopped being violently ill, she wrapped her arms around me in a big hug and said thank you. I told her that we should take her to the doctor's in the morning to get her checked over, because her sickness was so random, and she quietly agreed before washing her face, grabbing my hand and leading me back to bed.


	16. the morning of the doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall takes Caitlin to the doctor's.

Early the next morning, I rang the local doctor and booked an appointment for Caitlin at 10am. The receptionist knew me well and asked me who Caitlin was, so I told her the story. I could see Caitlin glaring at me from across the table as I rambled on about it, so I cut a few parts out of the story and even lied a little bit. I then rang my Elliott to see if he could look after Theo and Tommo, as Theo was on half-term break and I was uncertain about leaving Tommo with just him to protect her. Theo was a strong lad but there was no way he would be able to protect her by himself.

Harry agreed to look after Theo for the day so I hung up the phone and began making myself some toast, which was something that I had discovered Caitlin liked to eat in the middle of the night. I could sense that Caitlin was staring at me, and when I turned around, she was.

"What's up, Caits?" I said as I sat down at the table to wait for my toast, puzzled.

"Oh, it's nothing. I guess I'm just a bit nervous about this whole doctor's appointment thing. And you're so interesting to watch." she said.

"What are you so nervous about? I'm sure it's nothing, and everything is fine. It just helps to make sure, that's all"

"But Niall, what if what James did to me was worse than we thought. What if he got me pregnant, Niall? What would we do then?"

I was a bit taken aback by this statement, and after a minute or so of thinking over my reply, I said to her:

"Caitlin, we just have to hope for the best. And even if the worst becomes the worst, I will love and support you no matter what. And so will Tommo."

After that, I saw Caitlin's cheeks flush red. She stared down at her toast, looking very nervous indeed, and began to eat it slowly. I watched her, scared and confused, until the noise of the toast popping up out of the toaster took my gaze away from her.

As I waited in the waiting room of the doctor's with Caitlin just before 10am, I too began to feel very nervous. What if Caitlin was right? What if Jame's actions while she was unconcious were more than we thought? What if those actions were about to turn her world upside down? I sat there holding Caitlin's hand tight while crossing my fingers and nervously biting the nails of my free hand.

"You've always done that, haven't you?" I heard Caitlin say to me.

"Huh? Always done what?" I whispered, confused.

"When you're nervous, scared, afraid, whatever it is you're feeling right now... you always cross your fingers and bite your nails. It's something I've seen you doing right from x factor,  haven't you ever realised?" she replied, laughing at me a little bit.

I could feel my cheeks going red and said to her: "I never even realised I did that."

"Caitlin?" I heard the voice of the female doctor call her name, and she quickly stood up, beckoning me to come with her as she started to follow the doctor towards the consulting room. She took my hand and pulled me up from my chair, leading me to follow her and the doctor.

"So, why have you come to the doctor's this fine Irish morning?" the doctor asked Caitlin after we had sat down on two chairs in front of the doctor's desk in the consulting room.

"Well, it all started when a man called James kidnapped myself and my friend and I ended up being knocked unconcious, right? And the next thing I knew, I woke up in Niall's house covered in bruises and cuts and feeling very weak..."

"Like she had been beaten." I interupted.

"Yes, like that."

"But that's not what you've come to us for, is it, Caitlin?" said the doctor.

"Well, not exactly, but we feel like what we've come here for could be connected to that. Until last night, I had been recovering well and I felt perfectly fine when I fell asleep. And then I woke up around 1am and felt really sick..."

"And she ended up vomiting uncontrollably in the bathroom." I interrupted once again.

"Ah-huh." said the doctor. "Well, the first thing I would do is take this..." she reached into a drawer in her desk and pulled out what looked to me like a pregnancy test. Just what I thought.

The doctor handed the pregnancy test to Caitlin and told her how to use it. "Two lines means it's positive." she told her, before leading her to the customer bathroom. I stood silently outside the door of the bathroom and waited. After a few minutes, she opened the door of the bathroom, shaking a little bit and holding it in one hand.

"Niall..." she whispered. "There are two lines..."

"Let me see that." I said, not wanting it to be true, not wanting to believe it. She held it up so that I could see the small window that indicated whether it was positive or not, and sure enough, there were two lines.

All that I could say was: "Oh shit..."


	17. a ghost boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall goes down to the secret room in his basement where he keeps all his one direction related things, and there he talks to Liam the ghost.

The morning after we found out about Caitlin's pregnancy, I woke up really early, careful not to wake her as I got out of bed, and made my way down to the memory room in my basement. I had decided that I needed a bit of space all on my own to comprehend what was happening in my life at that moment. But I wasn't alone really, for I am never alone.

I grabbed the keys to the basement off the hook in the kitchen and put one into the lock on the door to the basement stairs. I turned the key as quietly as I could, hearing a soft click as the door unlocked, and very gently pushed the long-shut door open. I found the light switch and attempted to turn it on, but the bulb had gone bust. Luckily, I had a torch with me, and I used the light from it to unscrew the old bulb and replace it with a new one I had taken from a drawer in the kitchen. Now when I turned the light switch on, the light came on. I looked at the staircase with cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and clinging to the banisters, unsure of what might be hiding in the shadows, and stepped in.

I reached the memory room and unlocked the door with a different key, and this time, when I turned the light on, the light worked and there was not a cobweb nor any dust to be seen. I did not find this weird, because this room was in fact regularly used, cleaned and dusted by somebody who was a part of all these memories. And that somebody was Liam's ghost - he lived here, in this basement, he even had his own set of keys. I looked around the room and did not see Liam, apart from in the many pictures, dolls, albums and cardboard cutouts that made the room what it was - the memory room.

It took me a few minutes to figure out where I had left my beautiful acoustic guitar the last time I had been down here. I eventually found it, lying on a box tucked behind a cardboard cutout of Liam back when he had curly hair and looked an awful lot like Harry. I picked it up, held it on my lap, and began to tune the strings. After a while, I had gotten it perfectly tuned and placed the strap over my shoulder before beginning to play. I softly strummed the chords to a song that I hadn't heard in a long time, our winner's single from the show we started out on: Forever Young.

The last time I had played this song was at Liam's funeral all those years ago, and it was a song that we were all so so proud of, our very first. It was all about not wanting to grow up, wanting to be young forever, but we did grow up, we grew up super fast, and before we knew it we had lost one of our own. I remember Zayn singing Liam's parts of the song because Liam was no longer there to sing them. I remember the look of absolute pain on Louis' face as he began to harmonise with Zayn when it was never supposed to be Zayn singing those notes. And most of all, I remember that none of us were able to stop crying, the four of us now without the boy who had become our brother, when he should've been the fifth.

It wasn't until I finished playing the song that Liam finally decided to appear. He looked exactly as he did when he had died, four chevron arrow tattoos beautifully placed along his forearm, the very start of my solo from our song 'You And I' tattooed beside a feather. His beautiful brown eyes looked into my own blue oblivion, and he said to me:

"Hello, Nialler!! It's been a long time since you last saw me, innit? But me, I've been watching you, in a not creepy way, keeping you out of harm's way. Now, what are you going to do about this baby dilemma, aye?"

I smiled really big when I heard his voice, for I had always loved the sound of Liam's voice and I had missed it a whole lot. I didn't really know what to say to him, so I just looked down at the four chevrons on his forearm and remembered the day he showed us them for the first time, his arm bright red from the pain caused by the tattooing process. I remember how proud he was of the four arrows placed so perfectly on his arm.

Somebody once told me that you should never trust a ghost, and I never knew why they told me that. I trusted Liam more than I trusted anyone else in the world when he was alive, and it wasn't like him being dead was ever going to change that.

As I sat there strumming random rhythms on my guitar, Liam talked and talked and talked. I didn't really know what I was supposed to say to him, he was my best friend but this slight dilemma that was occuring in my life was not something I really wanted to talk about at that moment in time. I had come down here to get some space from it all, in the hope that reconnecting with my music would help me to think about just what it was that I would do about the tiny person growing inside of the beautiful girl I had come to love.

Liam only really appeared when there was something very important that he wanted to tell me, and obviously the situation that had come to me was to be a very important thing in my life. But why would Liam need to know about it?

I knew that the baby had a father who was quite possibly the most psycho man in the entire world, who had gone all over the world killing innocent women who thought that they could trust him. Tommo was the only one who had ever fought against him so strongly, and Caitlin was the only one who refused to say a word. Caitlin had always seen something bad in James, and she told Tommo that she should stay away from the man. But Tommo was stubborn, insisting that he was fine, but Caitlin couldn't be more correct. He had stabbed Tommo, and he had beaten Caitlin before getting her pregnant.

Liam told me to look after Caitlin and the baby, and to never ever tell the child that their father killed so so so many girls across the world, very nearly including their mother and her best friend. He told me to be more of a father to that kid than James will ever be. He said to let the baby believe that I was their father, and that they will find out the truth for themselves when the time was right.

I decided that it was now time for breakfast with Caitlin, Tommo and Theo so I stopped playing my guitar, said thank you to Liam, and then asked him to come up to breakfast with me. He agreed so I led the way out of the room, my guitar still swung behind me, locking the door behind us before making our way back up the cobwebby staircase to the kitchen.


	18. another victim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another victim is found, but this time is different.

I walked into the kitchen to find Theo already sitting at the table eating his breakfast, watching tv on what with technological advancements had become nothing but a picture on the wall. He was eating his cornflakes really slowly, concentrating on the words that the newsreader was saying. I had never seen my nephew so interested in the news, for he was usually watching something like Pokemon, so I stopped and listened to what the newsreader had to say. Liam, who was not far behind me, said hello to Theo as he walked in the door before he too stopped and listened to the newsreader's words.

The newsreader was standing in the middle of what looked like a green field. There had been no beautiful green fields in Ireland since a terrible drought three years before, so I assumed the man was in another country. He was talking about an ongoing worldwide police investigation, and he mentioned the name 'James Riley' which was what snapped me out of my sleep-induced trance. He read off a list of names from a piece of paper in front of him, a list of people who had been killed by James. Theo began to count them on his fingers, and by the end of the list he had counted 119 girls, all killed by the mastermind of a serial killer that had turned Tommo and Caitlin's lives, and subsequently my own, completely upsude down.

"That was a list of the 119 people that James Riley has killed in the past five years. There are only two people out there in the world, back home in Ireland in fact, that have ever survived the work of James Riley. For their protection, we cannot reveal the names of these two girls, and we cannot tell you any more details about their part in the investigation. The 120th person that James Riley has killed is what has bought us here, to a field, which there are no more of in Ireland, in the southern part of France. Why is this person so special? The answer is because this person is different from all 119 other victims of this man's doing. Because this particular victim is a man. Not a woman like the rest, but a man."

A man?! I thought, Why would James kill a man after he's killed all these women?!

"If the two surviving girls in Ireland could please come forward to the Irish police to answer a few questions, the police would very much appreciate it."

"What does they want them for, Uncle Niall? Why do they need the girls?" Theo asked me.

"I don't know, little man, I don't know. Maybe they think this dead man has a connection to them?" I replied

Both Theo and I had forgotten that Liam was standing right behind us until he said: "it's going to be okay guys, I'm sure it's nothing."


	19. ghostly introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin and Tommo meet ghosty Liam.

Caitlin and Tommo walked into the kitchen together after the newsreader had finished talking about James and the people he had killed, both looking very tired as if they hadn't slept at all the night before. I wondered what they had been doing all night that had lead them to be so tired.

Caitlin was the first of the two to notice Liam, who had pulled up a chair next to Theo and myself, and she seemed very shocked to see him.

"Liam?!?! Aren't you dead?!? How can you be here?" she exclaimed when she saw him there.

"Ummmm.... I am dead," Liam told her. "There's this thing where dead people like me can come back as ghosts and help people, and sometimes they can be seen. A bit like a guardian angel really."

"That's so cool!!" said Tommo. "What will happen if I try to touch you?"

"Try it and see for yourself."

Tommo reached out to poke Liam in the arm, and the area around her finger dissolved making her finger go right through him.

"WHAT THE HELL THAT'S SO WEIRD" said Tommo, quite taken aback by the fact that things could go right through Liam and come out on the other side looking exactly the same.

"Anyway, Liam, these two are Tommo and Caitlin. Tommo's the one who just poked you." I said.

"Why hello." said Liam.

"Okay, introductions aside, there was just a news report about James and they said you two need to talk to the police." said Theo.

"What? Why? I thought they were done with us." said Caitlin.

"Well, apparently not. I guess you should probably go talk to them. Dunno what it's about, but it must be important." Theo told them.

Caitlin and Tommo looked at each other nervously, not sure what the police needed them for, before they began to make breakfast for themselves.


	20. the police

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They go to the police station for individual interrogations.

I drove Caitlin and Tommo to the police station and when we arrived two female police officers took them into separate interrogation rooms and told me to fetch Theo from school because they needed to question all of us.

"Why do you need to talk to me and Theo?" I asked them. "Our only involvement in this case is that we live in the house these two ended up in."

"That's exactly why we need to talk to you," said a tall blonde Englishman who was sitting behind the front desk. "We have realised that we haven't been thorough enough with our investigation of this guy and you two are potential witnesses."

"Oh. Okay. But make sure they're safe while I'm gone!"

As I left the building, I bumped into ghosty Liam.

"Liam! What are you doing here?" I exclaimed when I saw him.

"You needed to make sure the girls are safe, didn't you? I'll make sure that nothing happens to them while you're gone. The Irish police might not be as safe as you think." he told me.

"Right... Well I'd better get Theo. I won't be long."

\----------------------------------------------------------

I returned about ten minutes later with Theo and they grabbed him and started pulling him towards a separate room.

"Wait! Where are you taking me? Why can't I stay with Uncle Niall?" he protested, trying to free himself from the policeman's tight grip on his arm.

"Theo, it's okay mate. They just need to question us separately about the whole serial killer incident, okay? They ain't gonna hurt you." I told him, and he nodded before allowing them to lead him away.

Liam began to follow them, telling me that he'd made himself invisible to everyone but us and would make sure Theo is safe.

"Niall?" said a female voice from behind me, and I turned to see a policewoman standing there. "I'll need you to come with me."

"Okay" I said, and followed her as she led the way to a room right at the back of the police station.

"We're not supposed to let anyone outside of he police force into this room," she told me. "But where all out of rooms so I'll need you to keep what's in this room a secret. Don't. Tell. Anyone."

I nodded, wondering what could be in this room that was so secret, and continued to follow her.


	21. the dead man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall finds out who the dead man is.

The policewoman led me to a door which was locked, and as she put the key into the lock she said to me:

"I apologise for the fact that it's really cold in here, it has to be so that the evidence doesn't get spoiled."

"Evidence?" I said.

"This room is our little Irish morgue, we keep murdered bodies in here."

"Oh..."

She pushed the door open and I immediately felt a blast of cold air.

"Hello, Jack!" she greeted the man who was examining a body on a metal table.

"Oh, hello Rose! I wasn't expecting you to be down here so soon! I'll just put our John Doe out of the way, and then you can get to work." he replied.

"John Doe?" I asked, puzzled.

"That's what we call the men who we don't know the name of, sonny. The women are Jane." he told me.

"You mean to say that you have no idea who this man is?"

"Nope, haven't a clue. They found him in France last night, he got here just this morning."

"So he's he man from the news report?"

"Indeed."

I looked at the man more closely, and recognised the dark hair and unmistakable defined cheekbones of one of my best friends.

"I think I know who he is..." I whispered.

"What's that, Niall?" said Rose

"I think I know who he is. Can I take a look at his face?"

"Sure, but don't touch him." said Jack.

I walked closer to the table and I knew as soon as I saw his face that I knew exactly who he was.

"It's Zayn Malik..." I choked out. "One of my best friends. I knew it was him when I saw his cheekbones, you could almost cut someone with those cheekbones."

"Oh, Niall. I'm so sorry." said Rose.

"I didn't think I'd lose another bandmate so soon... Liam died 13 years ago." I said as tears began to fall down my cheeks.


	22. the interrogation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall is interrogated.

Um, Niall... I'm really sorry for your loss but we need to get on with this interrogation." said Rose.

"Okay," I said, tears still falling down my cheeks. "Put him away."

Jack pulled a table out of a wall and wheeled the table Zayn's body lay on over to it before Rose helped him lift him onto it and slide it back into the wall, out of sight.

"You okay, Niall?" Jack asked me.

"Yeah, I should be fine to talk." I said, my voice wavering as I tried to dry my tears.

Rose led me over to a wooden table in the corner of the room with two chairs around it, one on either side, and told me to sit.

"So, Niall, tell me about what happened the night you found Caitlin in your house." she said after she pressed a button on a recording device she had in her hand.

"My nephew, Theo, came into my room and told me that something was going on in his old bedroom, which we had lost the key to about a year before. I thought nothing of it, and told him to go back to bed."

"And what happened in the morning?"

"I decided I to make sure everything was okay in that room, so I looked through the window in the door and that was when I saw her. Caitlin was curled up on the mattress, which was the only thing in the room, and from what I could see she'd had a pretty rough night. She appeared to have many, many cuts and bruises all over her body. I couldn't get into the room, so I waited until she woke up.

"When she woke up, she began to stretch and I could tell by her facial expression that she was in a lot of pain. She opened her eyes and looked around, seeming dazed and confused, until she saw me. She saw my face and smiled, and I've never seen a smile more beautiful. She whispered my name, seeming a bit surprised to see me there.

"The window in the door opened from the outside, so I quickly went and got two notebooks and pens and pushed one set through the open window. She looked at it for a minute before slowly crawling towards it, because she couldn't stand up. On my notebook I wrote to ask her who she was and how she got there, and I showed it to her. She wrote in reply: 'my name is Caitlin and I have absolutely no idea.' I quickly scribbled a note saying that I would get her some food before doing just that. I put a stool through the window so that she could reach the food from my hands."

"And then what happened?" Rose asked me.

"I waited until she had finished eating before I called the police to break down the door. They told us that there would be CSIs coming to see us, but they never did anything about it, only asked her what happened, and of course she couldn't remember. I let her shower and gave her some clothes that belonged to Isabel, my dead girlfriend, to wear because she is about the same size. It was only then that I saw the full extent of her injuries. I bandaged up her wounds and told her I would take her to the doctor, but she refused. I think she was a bit scared."

"Is that everything about her?" Rose asked me.

"Yeah, that's all that happened with Caitlin turning up at my house... Tommo showed up the next night. Caitlin and I were in bed together, I was cuddling with her because she was frightened, when she suddenly woke up because she remembered what had happened. She screamed at me that they were going to kill Tommo, and that's when we heard the most ear-piercing scream. We rushed into Theo's old room to find Tommo stabbed and bleeding out fast." I told her.

"Is that all you need to tell me?"

"That relates to your investigation, yes. Can I go now?"

"Yes, Niall. You can leave now. They should be finished with your nephew at least... and I'm so very sorry about Zayn."

"It'll be okay..." I whispered, before getting up to leave.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

Caitlin told me about her interrogation that night when we were in bed together. She told me that they asked her all sorts of questions about James and she had said Tommo would be better to answer those questions. I asked her if she had told them about the baby, and she said no, she hadn't.

"Are you going to keep the baby?" I found myself asking her.

"Of course I am. I can't sacrifice an innocent life, even if I don't want it and its father is a murderer." she whispered.

"Okay. Have you told anyone else about it? Have you even told Tommo?"

"Not yet, so far it's just between you and me, Niall." she paused. "You know, I've always wanted to have something like this with you."

"Really?"

"Ever since I first heard about One Direction... I've been in love with you."

"One Direction started out almost 17 years ago!" I said.

"It sure has been a long time, hasn't it? I remember when you were this little crooked toothed blonde haired blue eyed cutie who was the shortest 16 year old boy I'd ever seen. And now look at you! Tall, brown haired, poker straight teeth thanks to those braces you once had, and those bright blue eyes still as beautiful as the day I first saw you."

"I was... very short... and I hated my teeth..." I stammered.

"You were adorable, Niall. And I kind of miss those crooked teeth. "

"I love you, Caitlin. I've only known you for a couple of months but... I love you. With all my heart." I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her like I'd never kissed another girl before, long, passionate kisses that seemed to last forever. She didn't pull away, she just kissed me back just as passionately. I loved the feeling of my lips on hers, and her lips tasted just like strawberries.


	23. the phone call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall phones Harry and Louis.

The first thing I did when I woke up the next morning was phone Harry and Louis. They had owned in an apartment in London together since not long after our band was first formed and nowadays Louis lived there permanently while Harry mostly lived in LA. Harry had returned to be with Louis in London because not only was his house in LA now part of a murder investigation but he didn't feel safe being there after he had found that dead girl floating in his swimming pool.

It was Harry who picked up the phone.

"Hello?" he said.

"Harry, it's Niall. I need to talk to both you and Louis about something very important. Is he home too?"

"Ummmm.... Lou's still in bed.." he mumbled in reply.

"Well, Styles, get that boy out of bed and put the phone on speaker! This is an extremely important matter and you both need to know about it!"

"Okay... Just wait a few minutes..." he muttered before I could hear he sound of him putting the phone down on the kitchen bench.

After a couple of minutes, I could hear Harry yelling:

"LOUIS!!!! YOU GOTTA GET OUT OF BED!!! NIALL NEEDS TO TALK TO BOTH OF US!!!!"

This was followed by the sound of Louis telling Harry off and asking him to bring the phone to the bedroom, and then Harry uttered a quiet "okay..." before I could hear his feet on the floor as he ran back to the kitchen and grabbed the phone off the bench before running all the way back to Louis. One of them put the phone on speaker and Louis said:

"Nialler! Haven't heard from you in agesssss! What's so important, ay?"

"Ummm.... Well it seems the three of us have a funeral to plan..." I stuttered out.

"What are you on about, Niall? Whose funeral is so important that we all need to plan it?" said Harry.

"Well, the thing is... I've been caught up in a serial killer's plans and yesterday I found out that his latest victim is Zayn..."

"WHAT?!?!" they both screamed in total unison, not wanting to believe that we'd lost yet another bandmate and best friend. I didn't want to believe it either, but it was true. Zayn was dead.


	24. questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall and Caitlin talk over breakfast before the others wake up.

Harry and Louis were very shocked by the news and told me that they would try to come over to Ireland as soon as possible. I told them that I had no idea when the police would release Zayn's body and when they asked why, I told them about James the serial killer, because even though Harry had been caught up in it too, he obviously hadn't told Louis much about it. I told them everything, right from Caitlin to Tommo to Hermione to the baby and finally to Zayn. I also told Louis to be careful because he was the only one of us who hadn't been made a part of the case yet.

After the two lads agreed to ring me the next day and talk more, we ended the call and I headed to the kitchen where I knew hat Caitlin, Theo, Tommo and possibly ghosty Liam would shortly be joining me for breakfast.

I had just put four pieces of toast in the toaster (for I had learned that Caitlin quite liked toast so had decided to make some for her too), when Caitlin walked into the kitchen, yawning and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Can you make me some toast too, please?" she asked me.

"Already on it." I said with a smile.

"Thanks, Niall."

"Not a problem. " I laughed.

I looked at her and saw that even though she was only about nine weeks pregnant, her baby bump was already starting to show a little bit and couldn't help but burst out saying:

"When are you going to tell Tommo?"

Her worried eyes met my own and she whispered:

"I don't think it'll be long before she figures it out for herself."

"Whatever do you mean?" I said, puzzled.

"You know how after Tommo woke up from her surgery, she said that she finally got to meet somebody called Harry? Well, Harry was her son. Before we met, she unexpectedly learned that she was pregnant, and she named that baby Harry. But after four months, she had a miscarriage. Harry was gone. Trust me, Tommo knows better than anyone how to tell if a woman is pregnant. "

I didn't know quite what to say, so I simply nodded. An awkward silence developed and remained until the sound of the toast popping up out of the toaster broke it.

"I'll get that." said Caitlin, moving to get a plate from the cupboard.

"No, I'll do it. Just pass me a couple of plates and then we can have our toast." I smiled, and Caitlin said okay before handing me two plates onto which I put two pieces of toast each.

"Thank you, Niall." she said as I gave her one of the plates.


	25. one happy boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theo gets a girlfriend.

It wasn't long before Theo came into the room, practically skipping as he did so, a big smile on his face.

"GOOD MORNING UNCLE NIIIIIAAAALLL!" he yelled, and I must admit I was quite taken aback by how excited my young nephew seemed to be.

"Oh, and hi Caitlin." he said with a smile.

"What's got you so hyped up, boy? Have you been keeping a stash of chocolate under your bed and suddenly decided to eat it all or something?" I asked him.

"Um..." he hesitated, sounding quite nervous all of a sudden.

"Just spit it out, Theo. There's clearly something you're very excited about and your uncle and I would like to know what that something is, please." said Caitlin, ruffling his hair as she passed him en route to her seat at the table beside me.

"It's just... Um... Lily finally agreed to go out with me." he whispered, clearly embarrassed at his over-excitement.

"Lily?" Caitlin said, puzzled.

"Lily is the girl that Theo here has had his eyes on for quite a while, isn't she mate?" I asked him.

"Well... yeah." he said, grinning from ear to ear.

I got up out of my chair and walked around the table so that I could give my nephew a hug.When I let go of him, the tiny blonde boy's blue eyes were sparkling with happiness.

"I'm so proud of you, and I hope everything goes well for you and miss Lily." I told him, and I ruffled the young man's hair just as Caitlin had done just before.

"What is it with people messing up my hair?" he said, giggling.


	26. explanations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommo asks Caitlin if she is pregnant.

When Tommo finally came into the kitchen, the first thing she said was:

"Caitlin, can I talk to you in another room for a bit? Bring Niall if you like."

Here we go, I thought.

"Theo, stay here, okay? Tommo just needs to talk to us." I said to my nephew, as Caitlin got up from her seat and I took her hand in mine.

"Okay..." he muttered before moving to make himself some breakfast.

We followed Tommo to a room far from the kitchen, my sitting room near the front door, where the two of us took our places on a couch while she sat on a chair opposite.

Tommo took a deep breath before saying:

"Caitlin, are you pregnant?"

"Well... yes I am." Caitlin told her.

"Please tell me it's Niall's. Please."

"I can't... Because that would mean lying to you and I promised that I'd never lie to you." I felt her grip on my hand tighten.

"Did James...?" Tommo questioned, suddenly seeming terrified for her best friend.

Caitlin nodded, and she burst into tears. I wrapped my arms around her, whispering "It's okay, it's going to be okay."

"I can't believe he even dared to mess with you." Tommo said, anger in her voice, before she got up from her chair and walked over to join the hug, her and I comforting Caitlin as her tears soaked my t shirt.

The three of us sat there like that, cuddled up together, two terrified best friends and the equally terrified stranger who had taken them in, not really knowing just what to do.

"I love you, Caitlin." I found myself whispering to her.

"Me too." Tommo whispered just as lovingly as I had done.


	27. going home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin and Tommo are finally allowed back inside their flat to collect their things.

It was about three days after Caitlin had told Tommo about the pregnancy when we finally got the call from the police telling us that the two girls were allowed to go back to their apartment to get their things. We were told that it was unsafe for them to stay there any longer and that they were much safer staying with me.

When we arrived at the apartment, there were several large boxes not far from the front door which we had been told to pack as much stuff into as we could. If we ran out of boxes, we were to call one of the officers, who had given us his personal number, and he would bring more boxes. When we stepped in, the place smelled dusty and neglected. The girls found their rooms and began to sort out their clothes and other personal things, telling me to pack up the things in the kitchen.

I opened a drawer to find cutlery, and carefully placed it all in the bottom of one box before covering it with bubble wrap. The second drawer had tea towels and oven mitts and aprons in it so I put those on top of the cutlery, leaving space that could only be for plates. I found the plates in a cupboard and individually bubble wrapped them before placing them in the box. Into a smaller box I put bubble wrapped pots and pans, and that was all that was in the kitchen.

I went looking for Caitlin and found her in her bedroom which was on he right side of a hallway opposite Tommo's room.

"Do you need any help, love? I've finished packing all the kitchen stuff." I said as I walked into the room.

"If you could help pack the things in the wardrobe, that would be appreciated." she said with a smile as she put a t shirt into the box in front of her.

I obeyed, and soon we were all done with the packing and Tommo was too.

"Do you need anything from the bathroom or the living room?" I asked them.

"The living room has always been pretty empty, there's only really a sofa and a tv and some chairs in their really. Nothing we really need." Tommo replied.

"We should probably get our toothbrushes and things from the bathroom, Toms. Don't you think?" Caitlin said to her.

"Probably." said Tommo, and she went into the bathroom and returned with toothbrushes and other essentials which she put in a small box.

"Is that everything?" I asked the girls.

"I think so." said Caitlin, and Tommo nodded in agreement.


	28. the first scan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin and Niall go for her first pregnancy scan and there is a big surprise in store for them there.

A week after Caitlin and Tommo had moved all their things out of thier flat, Caitlin phoned a radiology company nearby and booked her very first pregnancy scan. By this time, we had told Theo all about it and he had begun to get rather excited.

Caitlin was now nearly twelve weeks pregnant and her baby bump was beginning to get quite big. I worried about how big she was getting, for it was still quite early on in the pregnancy and surely she wouldn't be that big yet. Sometimes she would say to me 'Niall, I don't think being this big so early on is normal', and I would agree with her because I too thought it was a bit weird.

The day of the appointment finally arrived, and Caitlin told Tommo to not come with us.

"I want it to be just me and Niall this time, okay?" she told her. "I promise we'll tell you all about it when we come back."

Caitlin hugged her best friend, and I heard Tommo whisper 'good luck'.

We didn't have to wait in the waiting room very long before Caitlin's name was called.

"Are you the father?" a woman dressed in a white coat asked me.

"Um... Not exactly..." I said.

"It's a bit of a long story, much too long to be told in one sitting." Caitlin told her.

"Alrighty then. Follow me." the woman said, and we did as we were told.

We were lead to a small room with a bed on which the woman told Caitlin to lie down on, and Caitlin did so.

"How many weeks along are you?" the woman asked.

"Twelve." Caitlin told her.

"Only twelve? Surely you're a bit big to be twelve weeks along, are you sure?"

"Positive."

Caitlin was instructed to lift her shirt up a bit, and after she did so I took her hand in mine and she gripped it tightly. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was scared. The woman put a sort of gell onto Caitlin's tummy, and she whimpered a bit at the coldness of it. A machine was then turned on beside the bed, and the screen above it lit up.

"Are you ready?" the woman asked Caitlin, and she nodded.

The lady pressed something on the end of a cord that was attached to the machine onto Caitlin's tummy and the screen lit up.

"Oh goodness, that explains it." the woman muttered to herself.

"What explains what?" I asked, puzzled.

"It looks to me like you're having twins, Caitlin!" she said, pointing out the fact that there were two baby-shaped outlines on the screen instead of one.

"We weren't expecting that..." Caitlin gasped, gripping my hand even tighter than before.

"It's going to be okay." I told her, and I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it softly.

The woman told us that the twins appeared to be healthy and that at the next scan, we would be able to find out what sex they were. She then told us that we were done now and free to go home.

When we stepped out into the carpark, her hand still in mine, Caitlin stopped and turned to me.

"Niall, what exactly are we going to do about this?" she asked me.

"I don't know, honey. This really comes as a big surprise to both of us, doesn't it?"

"I never really wanted one baby with that bastard, and now I'm having two of them. It's all a bit ridiculous, a bit crazy."

"It sure is."

"I always knew that James was trouble, and be turned out to be much more trouble than we ever imagined he would be. I warned Tommo, but she insisted that he was fine. Bit of a mess now."

"I wish I could turn back time and change it, I really do. If I could I would, but I can't so I shan't. "

"That's something that Tommo used to say. 'If I could I would, but I can't so I shan't'. Funny saying that is."

"Let's go home now." I said, and I lead her to the car before helping her into the passenger seat. "I love you, Caitlin, I really do, and if I could I would change things. But I still hope we would've met some other way."

I smiled before letting go of her hand and getting into the driver's seat.

"I love you, Niall." she said once I had started the engine.

I couldn't resist and I leaned over and kissed her softly on the lips. She smiled at me, and I then drove us home.

..........................................................................................................................

"So, how did it go?" Tommo asked as soon as we walked into the living room where she was watching tv.

"Something a bit unexpected happened. Is Theo home?" said Caitlin.

"Nope, he's gone over to Lily's. Cute couple, those two. A bit like you guys."

Caitlin sat down on the sofa beside Tommo, and I sat beside Caitlin for it was a three-seater sofa. I took hold of Caitlin's hand again, and again she held it tightly. She took a deep breath before breaking the news to Tommo.

"I'm expecting twins." she said, shaking.

"WHAT?!" Tommo exclaimed.

"They're both healthy, and the lady told us that if we come back in six weeks time, we will be able to find out if it's two boys, two girls, or one of each."

"This is uh, quite the surprise." said Tommo with a nervous grin on her face.


	29. missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis' little brother, Ernest, goes missing.

I was cuddled up in bed with Caitlin late one night not long after the scan when I suddenly got a phone call. I recognised the ringtone as the one I had set for Louis' number. What would he want from me so late at night? I wondered, and I gently let go of the pregnant girl in my arms before rolling over to pick up the phone.

"Hello?" I said.

"Niall, we have a bit of an emergency." Louis said frantically.

"What kind of emergency?"

"It's Ernest, he didn't come home after school and we haven't heard anything from him... No texts, no calls, no notes left in the kitchen saying he's going out, nothing."

"I'm sure he's fine... Maybe he forgot to tell you that he was going to spend the night at a friends house?"

"He wouldn't do that, Niall. Ernie ALWAYS lets us know if he's going somewhere. Oh god, what if the serial killer dude got him?!"

"Look, Louis. I'm sure Ernie is fine and safe... Maybe he dropped his phone and it broke so he can't use it anymore? Or maybe he just lost it. I'm sure he'll turn up."

"Mum said if he's not home by morning they're calling the police and sending out a search party looking for the boy. He's only fourteen, I hope he hasn't gotten himself murdered..."

"We just need to hope for the best."

"Harry and I are going to head to Doncaster right now. I'll fill you in on what happens in the morning." he said quickly, and he hung up the phone.

I turned to find Caitlin sitting up in bed, fully awake.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"Louis. His little brother, Ernie, has gone missing. " I told her.

"Oh my god... What if James got him?"

"Hopefully he hasn't and the boy is somewhere safe and they will find him soon." I said, and I leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Let's just try not to worry about him and go back to sleep, okay love?"

"Okay." she said, and we went back to sleep once more.


	30. number 123

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ernest is found dead, and the funerals of both him and Zayn take place.

I woke up the next morning at 9am to find that Louis had texted me:

I don't know what to do, Niall. The police found Ernie, but he's dead. Beaten and stabbed, just like your girls. They found him in the park, lying in the forked part of the tree he loved to climb. I can't stop crying. 

I read the text and couldn't help but sigh. What had happened to Ernie sounded exactly like what had happened to the other 122 victims of James Riley. He was so young, so, so young. Thirteen years old is too young to die so horribly. It was the first day of June, 2028. The very last birthday that his twin, Doris, had shared with him was not long gone.

I remembered the look on Louis' face when he had received a text from his mother telling him that he was going to have a little brother. I had never seen him so happy. Louis already had 4 younger sisters, Lottie, Fèlicitè, Daisy and Phoebe, on his mother's side, and another sister called Georgia on his father's side. He'd always wanted a little brother, and our band had become like brothers, yet now he was going to have a brother by blood.

Louis' mother had gone into premature labour and Lou had rushed to her side. He had watched the newborn twins struggle for life and he was terrified that he might lose the baby brother that he had always wished for. They both survived, however, and Louis was able to have a real little brother to love.

I knew that Ernest's death would hit Louis hard, and it did. I skyped him later in the day, and he was sitting on the sofa in the living room of his mother's home, Harry's arms wrapped protectively around him, sobbing. I had never seen my former bandmate cry so hard. I told him that I was so, so sorry.

After a while of trying to comfort Louis, Doris entered the room and Louis pulled her into a big hug and she too cried and cried and cried. She was now the only one of his siblings left living in that house, the older four (Georgia lived with his dad) had all left home. I couldn't imagine what was going through that young girl's mind, her twin brother now gone forever.

About a month after Ernest's death, both his body and Zayn's were finally released for burial. I was able to attend both funerals along with my nephew, while my friend Elliott, who I trusted greatly, looked after my house and the girls. I knew they would be safe with him.

Zayn's funeral was held in a small church in his home town of Bradford, Yorkshire, which a large amount of his family and us three remaining bandmates, along with ghosty Liam, made sure to attend. A lot of tears were shed, so many tears, mostly from Zayn's parents and three sisters but also from Louis, Harry and I. The three of us helped carry his coffin both into and out of the church, and we also helped to lower it into his grave in the churchyard.

A much smaller funeral was held for Ernest two days later, in Doncaster. The only people who attended were his parents, his sisters, Louis, myself and Harry. I'd never seen Louis cry so hard in my life. Young Ernie's small coffin sat in the centre of the tiniest church I had ever been in, and it was left open so that the family could touch his body when they said goodbye. I watched as Louis stroked the beaten lad's cheek, whispering, 'I'm sorry, Ernie. I'm sorry that you had to die so soon and so horribly. I won't ever forget you, my baby brother.' with tears streaming down his face.

When I returned home from going to both funerals, I found that Caitlin had become even more big than she was when I left. The twins were starting to get big, and in about a week and a half she was due for her second pregnancy scan. I was excited to find out whether the babies were two boys, two girls or one of each, even though I knew they weren't my own. I had grown to love Caitlin, more than anything, and I had grown to love the two small beings growing inside her almost as much. I loved them like they were my own children, despite the fact that I had always known that they weren't.


	31. double trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin has her second pregnancy scan, where they find out the genders of the unborn twins.

The day of the second scan finally arrived, and that morning I woke up to find that Caitlin was still asleep beside me. She looked beautiful with her eyelids closed and a slight smile on her face. I kissed her forehead softly, and when I touched her swollen belly with my hand, I could feel the twins moving slightly. It was at that point during pregnancy when the babies were just starting to move around, and they had been for about a week.

I slowly moved the covers off my body, careful not to wake her as I got out of bed. She stirred slightly, and I waited for her to yell at me for waking her up, but she didn't, she just went back to sleep. I then realised that I couldn't stop grinning at how cute she was.

About an hour after I had woken up, she finally joined Tommo and I in the kitchen where we were eating breakfast.

"It's starting to get a bit hard not to fall over now." she laughed as she moved to make herself some toast like every morning.

Tommo caught me grinning, and she said:

"You really have fallen in love with her, haven't you Niall? I don't blame you, I loved her to bits by the end of the day we first met."

It was 10am when the three of us walked into the waiting room of the radiology company, and when the lady in the white coat called Caitlin's name, she said:

"Oh, I see you've brought a friend with you this time."

"We have." said Caitlin, as she took my hand in her own and we followed the lady to a bigger room than before, with Tommo following close behind.

"Oh goodness, this is so exciting!" I heard Tommo giggle when she saw the ultrasound machine set up beside a bed a bit larger than the one from last time.

The same procedure was done as six weeks before, with the cold gell on Caitlin's tummy and the screen lit up with two slightly bigger baby shapes.

"Ah, do you guys want to know the sexes of the babies?" the lady asked us.

"We'd love to." Caitlin told her.

"Right," she said, moving the screen so that all three of us could see it clearly. "This one here is a boy, you can see his little penis right there..." she pointed to it and I watched Caitlin's face light up with a smile.

"And the other one is a little girl!!" said Tommo, pointing out the fact that the other baby did not appear to have a tiny penis like the first.

"That is correct." said the woman, and she chuckled.

In the car on the way home, I asked Caitlin what she was going to name her babies.

"Well, I've always liked the name Liam for a boy, so I'll probably call the little lad that." she replied.

"What about your daughter?" Tommo asked her from where she sat in the back seat.

"I never really thought about what I'd name my first daughter." Caitlin told her.

"Well, you've still got about half the pregnancy left to think about it, there's no real hurry." I said.

"I remember you once telling me that you liked the name Charlotte, not long after we first met." said Tommo.

"That's a very pretty name." I said.

"Maybe. I'll think about it." said Caitlin.

When Theo got home from school at around 3.30pm, he was dying to know the news about the twins, and so we told him. I watched as a smile creeped across his face when Caitlin told him that one of the babies was a little boy. I knew that my nephew had always wanted to have a younger boy in the house, so I wasn't surprised by his big smile.

Theo decided to hug Caitlin, very gently as not to hurt the growing babies inside her, and afterwards I heard him whisper 'I could feel one of them kicking me softly', the grin on his face becoming more happy by the second. He then turned and practically skipped to his room, and Tommo walked out behind him so that the two of us could be alone in the living room together.

I took Caitlin gently in my arms and I kissed her, slowly and passionately, and she kissed me back with just as much passion. I loved her, so very much, and I let my mind wander to the thought of the small velvet box still locked in the drawer in my bedroom with the ring in it. It will be getting very dusty by now, I thought, and I knew at that moment that I wanted that ring to be hers.


	32. the ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall thinks about the engagement ring that has been sitting in his bedside drawer for 17 years.

A week or so after the second scan, I decided to finally do something about the ring that had been in my drawer for longer than Theo had been alive. It was late afternoon, and Caitlin was in the middle of a nap, for being pregnant with twins was making her tired. Tommo was hanging out with Theo in his room, and now and then I could hear him laughing at something that she said.

I took the key to the locked drawer from where I had blu-tacked it under the table-like part of the desk beside my bed, in which a small drawer was built in. I put the key in the lock, and I turned it, it creaked slightly as I did so. I turned sharply to see if the noise had woken Caitlin, but saw that she was still sleeping peacefully. She really was beautiful.

I opened the drawer slowly, and dust went everywhere. Luckily, by this time, Caitlin had rolled over so that she was facing away from where the desk was and the dust was not able to reach her lungs and in turn affect the unborn twins. A small black velvet box was the only thing in the drawer, for it always had been, and I took it out before shutting the drawer again.

I held the little box in my hand and opened it, and saw the diamond and gold ring for the first time since I had locked it safely in the drawer in 2011, 17 years before. It had been such a long time that I had forgotten what it looked like: it was a simple gold band with a medium sized diamond in the centre. It was the first diamond thing that I had ever bought.

I held the ring between my left thumb and index finger, and admired it for a while before putting it back in the box and back into the drawer just in time for Caitlin to wake up.

"Niall, why is there dust everywhere?" she asked me as she sat up on the bed, one hand placed gently on her belly.

"I- I was looking at something that I hadn't seen for a long time."

"Right..." she said, sounding a bit puzzled.

"One day you'll find out what that something is, and hopefully that day won't be too far away." I said, giving her a small smile.

I took the ring out of the drawer once again the next morning before Caitlin woke up, and I stared at it for quite a while, holding it between my fingers and moving my fingers around the gold part and back. I sat there and thought, is five months into a relationship too early to propose? Probably, but I just want her to be mine.

I really wanted to propose to Caitlin, wanted to watch the way her face lit up when she saw me get down on one knee in front of her, wanted to see her smile the biggest smile after she said yes, I had a feeling that she would. I wanted to watch her walk down the aisle with tears in her eyes and her father's arm linked through her own. I wanted to see the love in her eyes while she spoke out her vows. But most of all, I wanted to feel the way she kissed me so beautifully once the minister had told us that we could.

I knew that I hadn't know the girl very long, and that she was carrying within her a little boy and a little girl who would grow up believing that they were my own and never knowing that they're not. That they would never know that their real father killed so many people, very nearly including their mother and her best friend. Those two small, unborn, fragile and precious children were to never know that reality.

I decided that I would, I would propose to Caitlin one day very soon, most likely before she was due to give birth to the twins in four months time. I put the ring back into the box and back into the drawer, and when I turned back around I found that she was still sleeping.

I got up out of bed and showered, putting on some clean clothes before making a big breakfast for the four (six?) of us to have once the three other people in the house had awoken.


	33. the proposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall proposes to Caitlin.

I decided to finally propose about a month later, when Tommo and Theo had gone out for the day (it was a Saturday) with Elliott. It was just me and Caitlin and the unborn twins in the house, alone. She was having another one of those afternoon naps, which had become a bit of a regular thing especially now that she had been pregnant for six whole months and they had begun to keep her up at night with their kicking. They were getting stronger and stronger by the day, those two.

I had pulled all the curtains in the house and put her one of favourite movies, Footloose, into the DVD player so that we could watch it cuddled up together once she woke up. I lit small candles on the coffee table in the living room and the bench in the kitchen, and I waited on the couch with the ring box in my back pocket.

"What's all this?" she said when she walked into the room to find me sitting there, patiently nervous.

"I just thought we could do something nice together, just the two of us, because we can." I said with a smile.

"I really do love you." she said, and she sat down on the couch beside me. I wrapped one arm around her back, resting my hand gently on her tummy, and I felt one of the twins kicking me.

I picked up the remote for the DVD player and pressed play. We sat and watched, cuddled up together, and after the movie was over I dropped down on one knee.

"Niall James Horan, what is going on, why are you-" the act of me reaching into my back pocket and grabbing the box made her stop before she could finish her sentance.

"Oh my god that's a ring." she whispered to herself.

"Caitlin, I know we've only known each other for six months, but you're the woman that I want to spend the rest of my life with. A friend of mine once sang 'people fall in love in mysterious ways', and the way in which we have fallen in love is more than mysterious. I will forever love you and those twins growing in you. Will you marry me?"

"OH MY GOD YES NIALL OF COURSE HOW COULD I SAY NO?" she blurted out, all her words ramming into one, and she began to cry.

I took her left and carefully placed the ring on her fourth finger where it meets her knuckle. And I kissed her.


	34. little things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall goes back down to the memory room and sings Little Things with ghosty Liam, and they talk about Zayn.

I woke up early the morning after I proposed to Caitlin and decided to go downstairs to the memory room before Caitlin woke up. I looked over at her to make sure she was still asleep, and she was. I got out of bed and quickly threw on a random pair of jeans and a t shirt before getting the key from the kitchen and heading to the basement.

"Hi, Liam." I said when I opened the door to see him standing there.

"Good morning, Nialler." he said with a smile. "I heard you're getting married."

"Yeah, I am. Finally did something about that ring I bought in 2011 and popped the question." I laughed.

"About time, 17 years ago you bought that ring. I remember being there with you when you bought it, you didn't know how much money to spend and you didn't even have anyone there to propose to."

"17 years? God, it really has been a long time."

I picked up my guitar and began strumming a rhythm that I had always loved playing. It was a song that our good friend Ed Sheeran had given to us and was on our second album as a band, and it was called Little Things. Ed was still going strong in the music industry, still writing beautiful love songs, still had messy ginger hair and that birthmark by his eye that made him look as if he'd been in a fight. He was still the same Ed as the day we first met.

After a while of me strumming the same old rhythm, Liam began to sing.

"Your hand fits in mine like it's made just for me, but bare this in mind it was meant to be. And I'm joining up the dots with the freckles on your cheeks, and it all makes sense to me."

Those few lines were the ones that Zayn used to sing, so naturally Liam choked up a bit at them seeing as Zayn had only recently been murdered.

"Remember the way Zayn used to sing those lines, Niall? Remember how amazing that voice of his was? I kind of miss it, don't you?"

The only thing I could do was nod. I missed Zayn, I missed him an awful lot. He was our best mate...

"I met up with Zayn not long after he died. He's not quite a ghost like me, but more of an angel. I told me to tell you that he's sorry, sorry that he got caught in the trap of that horrible man and he killed him. Sorry that you had to be the first one to find out that he was dead."

"I miss him, Liam. I miss him like I missed you right after you died. Do you think I'll ever be able to see him like I do with you? I'd like to tell him that he never needs to be sorry for anything. "

Liam and I sat and talked for quite a while, as I continued to strum old, well-known rhythms on my guitar. We talked about lots of things, about the career that we shared for those five years, about the serial killer, about the people who we knew that had been caught up in the whole serial killer thing, and most of all we talked about Caitlin, Tommo, and the twins.

After a while, I thought I could hear somebody tiptoeing down the stairs, but I didn't pay any attention to it because I was sure that I had shut the door to the stairs. I softly played the rhythm to a song that had never been ours, a song called Give Me Love, by a man who had given us a few songs to be on our albums: Ed Sheeran. I had always really liked the song, with its beautiful guitar rhythm and its beautiful lyrics, but I could never quite nail the thing Ed did with all the different notes and his loop pedal. Even with the rest of the boys, we could never sing that part as good as Ed could.

When I finally stopped playing my guitar, I could hear this soft sobbing coming from behind me. I turned to see Caitlin standing there, staring around at the posters that covered the walls, the many cutouts all lined up in a row, the many, many awards, every single bit of One Direction music ever to exist. She was in tears, her face and t-shirt sopping wet from them. I put my guitar down and walked over to hug her. She threw her arms around me and sobbed even harder, holding me as close to her as her baby bump would allow her to, her head buried in my chest, her tears soaking my own shirt.

She cried and cried and cried, and eventually I found myself crying with her. Once she finally managed to pull all the words going through her mind together, she choked out the words:

"Niall James Horan, I can't believe you kept all this stuff. All these memories, right here in your secret basement. Hidden away from the world. Why? "

"I kept all this stuff because I want to never forget One Direction, ever. Because those were the best years of my life, with Liam, Louis, Harry and Zayn, with my brothers. Because I miss the good times the five of us shared. The theatres, the arenas, the stadiums. I miss every single word to every single song we ever sang, and I remember every single one of those words. That moment when Liam here collapsed on stage, that was the moment that I knew was the end. I knew that our band wouldn't be able to carry on without the smiling lad with the big heart and the eyes like melted chocolate. But I wanted us to continue, I wanted us to keep going strong without him. No matter how hard we tried to keep keeping on, we couldn't do it. So I kept this little shrine to our career down here, hidden. Every single thing ever that was ever related to One Direction."

Caitlin continued sobbing into me for what seemed like a lifetime, and when she finally managed to stop and catch her breath, she told me that she too missed the One Direction days. That she missed being a teenage girl with a love for that one big boyband that so many adored. That she could never have dreamed of a life without the five boys who came together with a shared dream all those years ago. And that she couldn't believe that she was right here, in the arms of the man that she fell so deeply in love with during that time.


	35. deep breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin gives birth.

About a week before her due date, Caitlin walked into the kitchen wearing a jumper that looked incredibly familiar. It was a soft grey, big but not quite big enough to cover her huge belly properly, and it had the word 'QUIET' spelt out across the chest in big lettering. It looked just like one of the sweaters that I had worn during my career with the boys.

"Wait here for a minute. " I said when I realised what she was wearing, and I grabbed the basement key off its hook before rushing down to the memory room. I found a box labeled 'JUMPERS, 2013' and opened it. It didn't take long before I found what I was looking for: my grey jumper with 'QUIET' across the chest. I pulled it on, and somehow it still fit me just fine. I rushed back up to where she stood in the kitchen and the biggest smile I'd ever seen her smile spread across her face when she saw it.

"YOU STILL HAVE IT?!?!" She yelled.

"Of course I do, it was down in the memory room with everything else." I giggled.

Caitlin started to run over to give me a hug, but stopped half way, the light drowning out of her face.

"What's wrong? What's going on?" I asked frantically, moving to stand by her.

She took a deep breath before looking into my eyes and saying:

"Niall, I think I might be going into labor."

"What? But you're not due for another week..." I stuttered.

She clenched her fist tightly and I could see the pain as she crinkled up her eyes.

"It seems these two just can't wait to be born." She breathed out softly.

And with that, her waters broke, a puddle forming rapidly on the kitchen floor.

"Okay, it's definitely happening!" I cried out, panicky.

I hurriedly called Elliott and asked him to come and take care of Tommo and Theo, who had not yet woken up, before taking the terrified Caitlin by the hand and leading her to the car. I helped her into the back seat, for I felt like that would be the best place for her to be if one of the twins ended up being born sooner rather than later. She grumbled a a bit whenever I wave of pain hit her, as if she was trying her hardest not to scream like she wanted to.

It took five minutes for us to reach the hospital, and by this time I knew that Caitlin would be in so much pain that she could barely stand up, so a nurse helped me help her into a wheelchair in which she was wheeled to the delivery room, her hand holding tightly onto my own. We helped her onto the bed, and a doctor came along with a midwife shortly after.

"I wonder which twin will be born first." I whispered to myself as the midwife checked to see if the first baby was ready to be pushed out yet. I didn't know if Caitlin had heard me or not, but she squeezed my hand really tight as another contraction hit.

It wasn't long before the midwife told Caitlin to push, and she gripped my hand so tight that I was afraid she might break it as she did so.

"And again." The midwife told her, and she did.

"Head's out." Said the doctor.

"Not long now..." I whispered.

"Okay, Caitlin, I'm going to count to three, and on three I want you to push once more." Said the midwife.

"Okay." Caitlin breathed, the first word I had heard her say since we had arrived at the hospital.

"One... two... three!"

Caitlin pushed with all her might, and within seconds the cry of a baby could be heard.

"That's one born." I said.

"Still one more to go." She whispered back.

"Right, baby number one is a little boy!" The doctor announced as he cut the cord and handed the baby over to the nurse.

"Now, the second birth normally doesn't take quite as long, but we can never be sure how long it will take." The midwife told us. "It seems your little girl doesn't want to come into the world just yet."

"I just want both of them out of me!" Said Caitlin, gritting her teeth in pain.

"I know, but we have to be patient. She'll come when she's ready."

The nurse walked over and placed the baby boy in my arms, and he looked up at me with his big blue eyes full of adoration. His hair was beautiful, it was blonde and there was quite a lot of it.

"Your sister doesn't want to be born just yet, little one. It was your idea to be born today, wasn't it? You impatient little man." I said to him.

"He's beautiful. " Said Caitlin, pausing to look at her newborn son before another contraction came and she winced in pain.

"I think you can push now." Said the midwife.

I cradled the little boy in one arm and Caitlin gripped my hand as real tight as she pushed once again.

"Your daughter is definitely being born faster than your son." The midwife said to her. "Just one more push and it'll all be over."

"Thank god!" Said Caitlin. "It's hard work, this is!"

"One... two... three!" Said the nurse, and on three she pushed one last time, and the baby girl cried.

The little boy got a fright when he heard his sister's cries, and he too began to cry.

"Shhh, little one, it's just your little sister finally here." I whispered to him, before turning to tell Caitlin: "You did it babe."

"I did it, Niall! I actually made it through all that!" She said as the nurse placed her daughter in her arms.


	36. a visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommo, Theo and Elliott come to visit Caitlin, Niall and the newborn twins in the hospital.

About an hour after the baby girl was born, Elliott showed up with Theo and Tommo in tow. Caitlin was sleeping, for the double birth had drained all the energy she had out of her, and I was sat in a chair beside the bed with the baby boy in my arms while the girl also slept.

"How is she?" Elliott asked.

"She's absolutely knackered, mate! But she did it." I couldn't stop myself from smiling.

"Which one have you got there?" asked Tommo, seeing the baby in my arms.

"The boy." I told her. "The girl is asleep in one of the little cribs beside the bed."

"He's very blonde." Theo said.

"So is the girl." I smiled. "You can hold him if you like, he's wide awake. "

I placed my son, I guess I could call him that, in the arms of my young nephew. He held him gently, and couldn't stop staring at him. Neither could Tommo and Elliott.

"He's beautiful. " said Tommo after a while.

"So is the little girl." I said, and I looked up to see Elliott walking over to where my daughter lay in her hospital crib.

"He's right, they're both beautiful. " he said.

I watched as he reached down and stroked the sleeping baby's cheek, and I could hear her squeak.

"Do they have names yet?" said Tommo.

"The boy does, Caitlin wanted to call him Liam." The name was quite fitting for him. "We have no idea what to call his sister, though."

Baby Liam sneezed, and I was scared that Theo would drop him, but he didn't.

"Bless you." Theo said to him.

I was rather surprised that Elliott was still there, as usually he would only be around for a few minutes. I guessed he wanted to be there when Caitlin and her daughter woke up.

Caitlin woke up a couple of hours later, and by this time the girl baby had been awake for about an hour and little Liam had fallen asleep in Theo's arms. The little girl had been picked up by Tommo as soon as she had woken up, and was cradled in her arms, staring at her.

Caitlin yawned before opening her eyes and saying:

"Oh my god, I did it. I'm a mum!"

"You certainly are." Said Tommo as she stroked the wee girl's cheek and the little one grabbed hold of her finger and held on tight, smiling.

"Little Liam is sleeping." I said, pointing to where my nephew sat in a chair with the baby in his arms.

"Well, at least one of them is. I don't think I'd be able to handle it if they were both awake and screaming at the same time." Said Caitlin, sounding very tired indeed. "I bet she's hungry, Toms. You'd better give her to me."

Tommo obediently passed Caitlin her newborn daughter, and soon Caitlin was feeding her, watching in adoration as she looked up at her with big blue eyes.

"What are we going to call you, little one? Your brother has a name, but what about you, huh?" Caitlin whispered to the tiny baby.

"What do you think of the name Imogen?" Elliott said, the first time I'd heard him speak since he first saw the girl baby.

"Imogen. I think that's a perfect name for her, don't you, Niall?" Said Caitlin.

"It is perfect." I said. "And look, she's smiling, that means she likes it!"

"Liam and Imogen. Imogen and Liam. I love it." Caitlin said as she finished feeding Imogen and lifted her up so that she could burp her.


	37. caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The twins are three months old and Niall and Caitlin are playing with them in the garden when their biological father shows up, and is quickly arrested by Elliott.

About three months after we brought the twins home from the hospital, Caitlin and I were playing with them in the garden. Elliott had taken Tommo and Theo out for the day and as it was a rather nice day, we had decided to take the twins outside for some sun.

We lay down on the grass side by side with Imogen in Caitlin's arms and Liam in mine. I held Liam above me and moved him through the air as if he was an aeroplane, which of course, he loved. The baby boy had the biggest smile I'd ever seen him smile. His sister had decided to fall asleep on her mother's chest as she was a very sleepy baby.

I was watching little Liam smile and laugh when I suddenly felt Caitlin tense up beside me and wrap her arms tightly around her daughter.

"What's wrong, Caits?" I asked her.

"I heard footsteps on the grass." She replied in a whisper.

"What?" I said, shifting so that I was sitting up with Liam tucked into my chest (which made him cry because he was no longer an aeroplane), and looked around to see if anyone was nearby.

That was when I saw him.

There was a tall blonde man standing on our lawn less than ten metres away, smiling his face off. It only took me a couple of seconds to recognise his face: he was James Riley, the serial killer who caused all this, and the father of the twins I had taken on as my own.

He started to move towards us so I held Liam closer, afraid that he would take his children away or even worse, kill them and Caitlin.

"Not so fast!" came a male voice from not far away, a voice that I recognised as Elliott's, he had returned with Theo and Tommo.

James began to run, and Elliott chased after him. Theo and Tommo appeared and asked what was going on, and I explained.

"Are Caitlin and Immy alright?" asked Tommo. Caitlin had become silent, seemingly terrified by the thought of James being so close.

"I think they're okay, just a little shocked is all." I wrapped an arm around the two of them, Liam still tucked into my arm and screaming, Imogen still sleeping, unaware of what was happening.

"Niall, let me take Liam. At least let me calm him down, he seems so annoyed with you." Said Tommo.

"I know, I know." I said, calmly handing her the baby boy.

Five minutes later, I got a text from Elliott saying that he had arrested James and was taking him to the police station, which was met with cheering when I read it out to everyone.


	38. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall and Caitlin get married when the twins are three years old.
> 
> This is what I imagined Liam and Imogen looking like as flower girl and ring bearer walking down the aisle together: http://www-static.weddingbee.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/10/flower-girl-and-ring-bearer.jpg

Three years later, the morning of our wedding finally arrived. We had waited three years because we wanted to have the twins to walk down the aisle as flowergirl and ringbearer and to be able to understand what was going on. We were woken up early but the two of them running into our room, jumping onto our bed and shouting in unison: "Mummy, Daddy! You gotta get up, it's your big day!"

"Okay, okay, okay! Liam, Immy, let me out of bed so that I can make you some breakfast. Today you really need it!" I said to the very excited twins.

"Okay..." said Imogen, taking her brother by the hand and leading him out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen.

"Jesus, they're a couple of very excited three year olds, aren't they?" said Caitlin, yawning as she slowly woke up.

I kissed her softly on the lips and said:

"I don't blame them, they get to see their mummy looking beautiful and finally marrying their daddy today!"

"I can't believe this is happening, Niall. I never thought I had a chance of ever marrying you, but here we are, on our wedding day." she replied.

"I love you, Caits. I'd better go get those twins sorted out... breakfast in bed, yeah?"

"Sounds brilliant, love you too." She said with a smile.

..............................................................................................

A few hours later, I stood at the altar with Theo (my best man), Harry, Louis and Liam the ghost by my side, and our guests in the audience, waiting patiently for the moment Caitlin would walk down the aisle. I was quite nervous and Louis had to tell me off a few times for subconsciously biting my nails.

After what felt like ages, music began to play and the twins began to walk down the aisle towards us, Imogen smiling her face off and just about skipping, and Liam walking slowly with a nervous look on his face. Liam ran to me and I told him to stand beside Louis, which he did, and imogen stood opposite me and was shortly joined by Tommo, the maid of honour, and two other bridesmaids. I just about held my breath when I realised who would walk down that aisle next: my bride.

When I finally saw her, I couldn't help but burst into tears. Caitlin looked beautiful in a long white strapless dress (which Imogen rushed excitedly to hold the end of) with white lilies in the bouquet in her hands.

"You look absolutely gorgeous." I whispered to her when she finally reached the altar and stood in front of me.

"Thank you, so do you." She whispered back, and the marriage celebrant cleared his throat.

"We are gathered here today to join Niall and Caitlin in holy matrimony...." he began.

The funny little man who was to marry us waffled on for quite a while before we finally said our vows. He then asked for the rings and little Liam rushed to give them to him, nearly tripping in the process.

"Careful, son." Caitlin said to him.

"I got it, I got it!" he said, before placing the box with the rings in the man's hands.

"Thank you, young man." He said, and Liam rushed back to stand beside Louis again.

The man opened the box and handed one ring to Caitlin. This was the moment.

"Caitlin, do you take Niall to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, until death do you part?"

"I do." she said, placing the ring on my fourth finger.

The man repeated what he asked Caitlin, switching Niall and Caitlin around and changing husband to wife.

"I do." I said, shaking as I placed the ring on her finger.

"I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss the bride!"

And I kissed her with more passion than I had ever kissed her before.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the story, sorry it was so long... Thank you for reading right to the end, I am very proud of this story and thankful for every single read it has had on both wattpad and ao3. I will be writing multiple Larry AUs in the future, so keep your eyes peeled for those (they will nearly always include smut ( top Louis)).


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